Bluestocking Film Series has for seven years been a leader in the film community and the building of a global movement to represent, celebrate, and cultivate strong and complex female protagonists in film. This year, Bluestocking is going on the road to take the program to different cities, and coming up in a few days is the Los Angeles screening of Bluestocking 2017 (presented by CineFemme). Read on for an interview about the festival with Kate Kaminski, founder and artistic director of the Bluestocking Film Series.

Kyna Morgan: This year is the seventh anniversary of Bluestocking. After now having passing your early 'start-up' years, what drives you to continue this endeavor?

Kate Kaminski: Bluestocking is mission-driven, meaning I'm driven to continue because I believe women's voices and stories are culturally important and they must be told in equal numbers. But, as we know, this equity has not been reached (yet). I am also a film lover and the majority of what I see playing at the movie theaters features male protagonists. Hollywood's obsession with superheroes and gun play, not to mention the dearth of meaty, meaningful featured roles for diverse women of all ages, make the films seem recycled and tired, if not downright awful. I want to see a full range of women and girls represented on-screen in fresh stories and situations, you know, like life!

KM: You're also a filmmaker and an instructor of film in Maine. What do you see going on with New England filmmaking or even your own students, (some of whom will be the filmmakers of tomorrow), that interests you or that you find exciting, especially with regard to how women and girls are represented on screen?

KK: In terms of indie filmmaking in New England, I'm not as up on that as I could be but your prompt makes me realize I better get on it! I don't see an uptick in fuller representation of women and girls onscreen or behind the camera in Maine, where the community is still overwhelmingly white male-dominated. I would like to help change that and, as an educator, I'm deeply committed to mentoring my students (of all genders) to understand that the hegemony in cultural storytelling leaves out so many vital voices. Students often have this "wow" moment when I expose them to that deceptively simple fact. Then they realize what’s missing, and I’ve had many tell me they can’t look at films the same way anymore.

KM: How do you see the conversation around women's representation on screen and in the film industry changing over the past few years, and where do you think it's going?

KK: I think mainstream awareness of the ugly reality of gender inequality in the U.S. film industry has become more prevalent. Social media seems to be a prime mover of that awareness, but it’s broken through in the mainstream press, too. More and more people are coming to understand that women and girls have not been given a fair share of screen time (again, whether behind or in front of the camera). I'm not convinced this awareness has yet deeply permeated into the top floor offices, to those (primarily) older white men who make decisions about which films will be made and by whom. I’m sure you know that neither Fox nor Paramount has a single woman-directed project on their rosters for 2018, so that doesn't bode particularly well for female representation on cineplex movie screens in the near future. But they won’t be in charge forever, and I remain highly optimistic that indie filmmakers can have a huge impact (and influence) working outside “the system.” We consumers can also have a big impact on gender inequity by showing strong support for women-directed, female-driven films at the box office and on the small screen. We have the power to demand better stories and fuller representation if we exercise it.

KM: Where can people find Bluestocking this year?

KK: Bluestocking will spend 2017 traveling to towns across Maine, the country and around the world. The whirlwind begins on June 23 in Los Angeles at the historic Egyptian Theatre when we’ll premiere our 2017 selections. Our goal for this year’s traveling exhibition of female-driven short films is to put Bluestocking’s mission in front of as many new audiences as we can. With luck, we’ll be back in Maine for the full festival experience in 2018.

Connect with Bluestocking Films:

(The June 23 screening in Los Angeles is currently sold out through Fandango, but get in touch with Kate Kaminski through the social media or website links below to inquire about possible ticket availability)

Coming up tomorrow in New England is the second film screening in a monthly series launched by film critic Leah Gage of Leah's Movie Lowdown (a Her Film Project media partner) in cooperation with her site's media partner, WSCA Portsmouth Community Radio in New Hampshire. For this screening, Leah has partnered with Bluestocking Film Series based in Portland, Maine, and will introduce a "Sneak Preview' lineup of films from Bluestocking's 2017 program which is also a traveling festival this year. Bluestocking screens short fiction films that feature strong female protagonists and pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test which ensures female-female dialogue about something other than a male subject.

Gage launched Leah's Indie Film Series earlier this year. About this month's screening with Bluestocking, she says, "I'm really excited that we were able to partner with Bluestocking and Kate Kaminski for the second edition of Leah's Indie Film Series; not only because of Bluestocking's message that female driven narratives are just as compelling and interesting as anything else, but because of the great films Kate will share with us and our audience. Portsmouth is the perfect place to hold an event like this, and we're happy to help Kate and Bluestocking kick off their 2017 road trip!" Gage conducted interviews with some of the filmmakers from the first months' event. Which you can listen to here (scroll toward the bottom of the page for links). Leah's Indie Film Series is ongoing and accepts submissions on a rolling basis. Filmmakers can get in direct touch to inquire about submitting.

This year, in addition to the May 18 sneak preview in New Hampshire, Bluestocking is hosting a traveling film festival in different areas of the U.S., but will also include a screening in its home base of Portland, Maine. On June 23, it will premiere its 2017 program in Los Angeles at a screening hosted by CineFemme in the Spielberg Theatre at The Egyptian. About this year's events, Bluestocking's Artistic Director Kate Kaminski states, "We're really pleased to partner with other women, like Leah Gage, who are building audiences for female-driven films on a grassroots level. Bluestocking's 2017 lineup features a fresh bunch of very complicated women and girls and I'm excited to share the program in New Hampshire on Thursday."

Founded in 2011, Bluestocking has been a leader in the world of independent film as it's pushed forward the agenda of social justice through increased and complex female protagonists on screen. Passing the Bechdel-Wallace Test is a requirement of all films in order to be eligible for the series. The test can be good gauge of gender roles and representation in film and can be handy as well when implemented in connection with, or within the context of other tests such as, the DuVernay Test, the Shukla Test, and the Asian Pacific Bechdel Test (also known as the Long Duk Dong Bechdel Test) that help to focus on racial and ethnic minority and female representation. (Also, specific to Swedish film is the Chavez Perez Test which focuses on diversity and roles played by actors with immigrant backgrounds.)

The following is a guest post by both the writer-director and the producer of Darkness Finds the Fearful, a horror-thriller short and graduate thesis film at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia.​

ABOUT THE FILM

The film follows a young woman named Natalie who is fleeing for her life in an abandoned building. She’s accompanied by another victim, Britney, as both are pursued by their abductor. As Natalie leads the escape, she reflects back on hunting in the woods with her forest and the wisdom he imparted on her about survival.

learn more & connect

To learn more about this film, support its production, and to connect with the team, please visit:

BY SIN RIBBON, writer-director​This narrative is the distilled essence of a feature I have written, as I hope to provide a glimpse into the dark worlds I create. Like the feature, Darkness Finds the Fearful illustrates human nature in its rawest form and examines how human life is valued. I wrote the feature because I was fed up with horror clichés—survivors portrayed as vapid, thoughtless, and weak that are sacrificed for gratuitous gore. I don’t shy away from violence if it serves the story, but death only instills an emotional reaction in audiences if the characters have a soul. To mock but also enhance the genre, I wrote the feature to showcase close friendships, survival instincts, and prominent female characters. The short embodies that same spirit by presenting human nature as it truly is, without condoning or condemning.

The portrayal of women and realistic people in general is important to me. I strive to portray characters with depth—something I equate to complexity over mere strength or altruism. "Natalie" is a determined and resourceful woman, but she is also fallible, conflicted between her need to be protective and need to survive. Characters are relatable in their primal goals, in their mistakes and misgivings. Subconsciously, I think we want to be validated in our faults, likely why we are drawn to these characters, but likewise characters have to learn something. A path must be forged. I’ve chosen this story because I believe introspection is important for us as humans. We should always be willing to examine our humanity, unfiltered and at its deepest level. By exploring these aspects, we can be more honest with ourselves and grow, even from fictional experiences.

About the Writer-DirectorSin Ribbon is an artist, filmmaker, and storyteller. She wrotethe short horror-thriller Darkness Finds the Fearful and will direct it for her graduate thesis at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

BY SOMMERSILL TARABEK, producer

When first approached by Sin to work on the film, I was drawn in by her approach to horror. Not only does the focus of the film rest primarily upon questions of human nature, but the film expresses itself through the lenses provided by its characters – the strongest of which are women. In many horror and thriller films, women play subordinate or "damsel" roles that require them to be rescued by men. In Darkness Finds the Fearful, viewers will find this is not the case. As a woman myself and a fan of well-written characters like "Natalie," I realized the sort of impact a film like this could have on the genre and wanted to be part of it.

As producer, my main concerns with this film are its logistics. The locations properly reflect the aspects of Sin’s vision, the actors thoroughly represent their respective characters, and the quality of the film will be high because of our insistence to get it right. With pre-production underway and principal shooting around the corner, it’s an exciting time at Team Darkness.

About the ProducerSommersill Tarabek is a filmmaker and producer of Darkness Finds the Fearful.